New Member funny story

Hey guys new member and new Tacoma owner. I put funny story in the title because I wanted to share my experience buying my Tacoma. I figured some of you may get a kick out of it. It’s not hilarious but it made me laugh at the end of what happened.

Went to Carmax back in July to buy a Tacoma I found on their website. It was a 2013 prerunner TRD sport. I ended up buying the truck. About two weeks after I bought the truck, I was accelerating onto the freeway at the end of a pretty long on ramp. I was accelerating pretty quickly going about 60mph and gaining speed as I merged onto the freeway. All of a sudden I heard a pretty loud pop/small explosion sound under the hood immediately followed with a bunch of smoke and then about 5-10 seconds later a shitload of fluid sprayed all over the front of the truck including windshield. At this moment I kind of thought maybe a coolant hose blew off? Then I turned the windshield wipers on and it smeared what I thought was coolant all over my windshield. Luckily there was an off ramp super close that I could see. So I basically let off the throttle, didn’t turn the truck off though and coasted to the off ramp. As soon as I got off the freeway and started turning on the off ramp toward a normal street next to the freeway, the truck died. So I stopped, got out, popped the hood. Soon as I popped the hood I saw an oil filter just laying in the engine bay right under where it is suppose to be on the motor. Then I realized all the fluid that dumped all over my truck was oil. Then I realized that’s why the “coolant” which was actually oil smeared all over my windshield the way it did so I could barely see out of it.

So long story short as far as what Carmax did to fix this problem:

They gave me a full refund towards a different truck AFTER they tried three or four different times to tell me that they just put oil back in the motor and started it up and it “sounds like it’s running great.” I told them I would never take the truck back because it’s reliability is now jeopardized.



I ended up finding a 2017 Tacoma TRD Off Road that i put my refund from the original truck towards.

After dealing with Carmax about the entire situation, I am not happy honestly. I’m pretty stoked I ended up with the truck I got, but would never buy from Carmax again. I’ve never actually heard of anyone that had an oil filter fall off while driving. Carmax even told me it’s the first time it has ever happened to them and that was the main reason they were giving me a full refund since I had the truck longer (16 days) then their 7 day return policy.

 

Welcome to TacomaWorld! Never seen that before

 

Soooo what brand oil filter is that

 

As a Carmax employee, far more stuff similar to that happens more often then you would think. Also as much as it should, that kind of neglect doesn’t surprise me much...

 

Welcome to TW

 

Welcome to TW!!

 

Not sure. Carmax told me they changed the oil when I purchased the truck. Should be whatever brand they use.

 

Good looking Taco! Hopefully you have better luck with the 3rd gen

 

There is a reason Carmax mechanics work at Carmax.

 

Thanks, so far so good!

 

Did they say what they thought happened to make the oil filter pop off like that? From your description is sounds like it exploded off, or did it just fall off?

Just curious I guess...they must have barely threaded it on if it fell off like that

 

There’s 2 reasons actually
1 guys who are bad at their job
2 young guys that are great at their job and fast at that. One of the new guys makes off like a bandit fixing everyone else’s mistakes at lighting speeds hahaha

 

Welcome!

 

Not 100% sure, but from the picture it looks like the oil filter mounting stud is stripped. Oil filters are ment to be hand tight and then an additional 1/4 turn, people think they need to crank down with a filter/band wrench until they can't get it any tighter which does one of two things, pulls the threads out of the filter of strips the mounting stud. I have seen it happen 3 times and every time it has been after the vehical was serviced at a quick lube. But hey look at it as a short term lease or a extended test drive.

 

Makes sense, I only ever hand tighten mine...never used a wrench on one. Haven't had any trouble with them breaking or getting loose.

 

To be honest the service manager I dealt with when it actually happened seemed like he had absolutely no clue what to do. So he sent me home with a rental car and told me he would call me the next day when he figured out what they were going to do. So he calls the next day and this is all he said “GOOD NEWS! Put a new oil filter on, cleaned it up, and your trucks running great and ready to pick up!” That’s when I told him I did not want to take the truck back because I felt the reliability of the motor is now jeopardized. Then all he said was “so you want to talk to my manager?” And I said yes. (I thought it was funny he immediately assumed I was going to ask to speak to a manager). Then he had someone else call me and try and convince me to take the truck back. Then I got frustrated with him trying way too hard and told him there was absolutely nothing he can say that will make me take the truck back and I wanted to talk to the branch manager. So another person called me who wasn’t the branch manager but basically told me since I was past the 7 day return policy and that he has never seen an oil filter fall off that the situation was an exception and he would give me a full refund. So there really wasn’t any explanation as to what actually happened, but I really didn’t ask either.

Also to answer your question about what I heard when it actually happened. It kinda sounded like somebody threw an m-80 under my hood inside of a big pillow. Hopefully that’s a good description lol.

 

I wanted to add to this thread something I forgot that I thought was kind of funny. When I went to pick up the new white Tacoma, I had to grab a few things out of the older Tacoma. The sales guy that ended up telling me he was giving me a refund told me while I was grabbing my things that he was just going to throw the old truck right back onto the lot to sell. I just thought it was kind of weird and shady and really made me feel not great about buying my truck at Carmax.

 

Honestly a dealership would do the same thing. There's a big thread on here where a Toyota dealership took a truck back from a member after they dropped a tool in his truck's cylinder doing a spark plug change and ran the engine...they put that truck back on the lot for sale immediately. If it runs well enough to pass off as being in good condition then it's good enough to sell.
That's just the risk we take when we buy used vehicles.

 

Welcome to TW! Yikes that's crazy. Glad to hear you stood your ground though. I wouldn't have taken that truck back either.